Seven Devils and A French Nun

Lisa Biggs is an award-winning theatre/dance artist, performance scholar and activist. A Chicago-native, she has been developing and presenting new performance works for almost twenty years. Her current research uses performance studies approaches to uncover and articulate how contemporary legal and penal systems enact criminalization, incarceration and rehabiltiaiton, with a special focus on the impact of theatre and dance programs for women behind bars in the US and in South Africa.

His Eyes are on Broadway

Shakespeare on the Quad

By Julie Keresztes '12

Love triangle? More like a hexagon! On the evening of April 22, students and passersby experienced a charmingly witty modernization of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night on the First-Year Quad, followed by a picnic-style celebration and a chance to meet the cast. The production was the brainchild of Brooke Bishop '10, also the director, and starred a cast of 10 students.

When asked what motivated the performance, Bishop said that “Eric [Swartz '11, a cast member] and I wanted to do something independent of the college and the theater department, and we wanted it to be something that might bring the Amherst College community together. And we wanted it to be an event, not a traditional theatrical performance. So we thought, what better place to bring all kinds of Amherst kids together than the freshman quad?”

Indeed, there was no better place. The quad is typically unaccustomed to excessive amounts of laughter during finals, but all that changed with the cast’s opening lines. With the final bow and standing ovation it was clear: Amherst College has fallen in love with theater all over again.